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The doctoral dissertation of Pelin Geyik's, M.Sc “Consumers’ Changing Relations in Contemporary Consumer Culture: A Bourdieusian Inquiry” will be publicly examined at the Aalto University School of Business on Friday, June 5, 2026.

The public defense will be held at the Aalto University, Undercraduate Center, Otakaari 1, lecture hall H304.

Opponent: Professor Elina Närvänen, University of Tampere
Custos (Chairperson): Professor Henri Weijo  (Aalto University School of Business)  

Sociotechnical and sociocultural transformations change and redefine consumers’ relations with others. The dissertation explores how consumers navigate their emergent relations as algorithmic mediation and evolving gender scripts change field dynamics. Pierre Bourdieu’s relational approach informs two essays and a solo-authored art-based research project. 

The first essay examines how algorithms mediate and reshape consumer relations with other consumers, influencers, products, and brands. Drawing on a qualitative inquiry into engaged fashion consumers, we explore how consumers strategically interpret and interact with algorithms in the pursuit of building status in the fashion field. Our analysis reveals emergent consumer practices of algorithmic field maneuvering. The essay contributes to consumer-algorithm interactions and offers managerial insights for managing algorithmic marketing strategies.

 The second essay explores how evolving gendered scripts reshape family relations, with a focus on children’s gender socialization. Drawing on an ethnographic study of rainbow families in Finland, we illustrate how consumers accumulate gender-reflexive dispositions through their relational and embodied experiences and seek to transmit this reflexivity to the next generation through consumption strategies. This paper offers several theoretical contributions to research streams on consumer socialization and consumer reflexivity. 

The third piece is a solo-authored, art-based research that explores the affective dimension of symbolic violence in women’s relational experiences, focusing on products tied to norms regulating women’s bodies and sexuality. This work makes theoretical contributions to gender, care, and art-based methodology in consumer research.

Further information:
E-mail: pelin.geyik@aalto.fi 
puh. +358 50 4736773

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